About Face
Because life's too short to blush,
I keep my blood tucked in.
I won't be mortified
by what I drive or the flaccid
vivacity of my last dinner party.
I take my cue from statues posing only
in their shoulder pads of snow: all January
you can see them working on their granite tans.
That I woke at an ungainly hour,
stripped of the merchandise that clothed me,
distilled to pure suchness,
means not enough to anyone for me
to confess. I do not suffer
from the excess of taste
that spells embarrassment:
mothers who find their kids unseemly
in their condom earrings,
girls cringing to think
they could be frumpish as their mothers.
Though the late nonerotic Elvis
in his studded gut of jumpsuit
made everybody squeamish, I admit.
Rule one: the King must not elicit pity.
Was the audience afraid of being tainted
—this might rub off on me—
or were they—surrendering—
what a femme word—feeling
solicitous—glimpsing their fragility
in his reversible purples
and unwholesome goldish chains?
At least embarrassment is not an imitation.
It's intimacy for beginners,
the orgasm no one cares to fake.
I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.
Passport
As an infant, I was kissed by Valentino.
Tango stain and sweat
bouquet of greasepaint—
an unnutritious—foreign taste.
Sandgrains!
The depilatory smell of elegant
black ironed brows—slight needle sticks
from razored check—the starry fangs
of slave bracelets and clove
smoke clasped in every fold.
Though I can't say I remember
being only nine months old.
Mother played the Wurlitzer
at local picture shows.
I give you her
rendition. She rose
solemnly from the deep
pumping and pressing
as the giddy instrument
was steeped in sunrise beams
and celluloid reeled
like well-behaved
ticker tape
through the narrow gates.
Her repertoire included STORM FUNERAL
GRUESOME QUIETUDE
THREE KINDS OF LOVE AND
NEUTRAL. But
Valentino—oh—
she wasn't equal
to the moaning hormonal
harmonies he needed. His swagger
rattled her. The six-foot
oasis—liquid
makeup of his face
razed her
to helpless arpeggios.
Our kitched thickened with stills.
Dad snickered at "The Sex Menace
on the Ice Box." Yet he fretted—
as if secretly crediting
the abductions of swoon
stare and burnoose—
when Rudy bowed
through town. Mother's connections ushered her
backstage and the scale changed
to the minute ahs and ooze
of a connoisseur
as she described the drawing
near. So close
she noticed the recessive
knife tracks in the deadly
jelly of his hair.
He clicked his heels and kissed her
palm, kissed the bald crack
where my skull's plates fused, fixed
or dismissed her
with his desert glance.
In some tellings, she held his hat
as if it might sprout antlers. Yes,
expand into a feral candelabra
while he held me,
reciting poetry
he had composed himself. He sold
Mineralava Beauty Clay
at intermission. Mother said he bungled
the ad by mumbling. Sound was
trauma. He was king of
costume, gesture, the skin
of drama. The erect pinkie
while sipping tea, the kiss he gave his sugar
lump before he slipped it in—
my mother mimicked every move
during bedtime stories.
In a bunting of Boraxed linen, I lay
smoking a thermometer,
listening to plots feverish
with disguise.
The Italian Valentino as an Arab
revealed to be a Scottish Earl—or a Cossak
passing as a bandit
who moonlights as a French tutor.
The Duke of Chartres posing
as the ambassador's barber—or descendant
of the mortal brother of
Krishna reincarnated
as a popular student at Harvard.
Mother recited every subtitle.
They surface sometimes, out of context,
while shaving or passing
the lap-dancing dives
on Seventh Avenue: DON'T BE SILLY MASCHA,
HE'S MASSAGING MY HEADACHE AWAY.
I've seen clips of his astounding dress.
Stitched in little festivals.
His suit of lights in Blood
and Sand. Harnessed in
bangles as —The Young Rajah? Stripped
to wasp-waist, heart-shaped
beauty marks—hose, wig, garters
as a queen
applies his lips
and simpering lackeys induct him
into lace jabot. A vengeful press
release portrayed him as
"supported by silken pillows,
wickedly smoking sheikishly
perfumed cigarettes."
And a machine dispensing orchid powder
in a men's room led the Tribune
to accuse him
of debauching U.S. guys. Right
After this publicity—was I two, three?—
my first memory—Valentino
died. L'homme fatal. Of peritonitis.
WILL YOUR MAJESTY KINDLY
SIGN THIS PASSPORT?
The cosmic master-
minds he kept—his spirit guides
and medium in Pasadena—failed
to see his early death. Would he have believed
a greater prophet? Darwin
said agents can improve
their futures without paranormal gurus,
improve by using
environmental feedback: market research.
The sweeps. And Nielsen.
When Rudy passed away, my mother's mind
became an intimate sealed place
my father couldn't fumigate.
Laced in mantillas
as long as she lived
on the day he died
she brought orchids to his crypt
and said her lines: "I am older—
tonight, Master—
but the love is the same . . . "
The tabloids named her
The Lady in Black. Of course,
there were imitations.
One year, five
morbid clones appeared.
But mother was the first. It was her
idea. Her vocation—almost—
you could say. It made her—well—
anonymously famous.
And Valentino was effaced
as consuming passions changed.
Those flappers who found themselved transported
in the dark have died.
Those tie-me-up
tie-me-down-those-whitely-flashing
eyes! It wasn't the irises
they fetishized.
It was the blanks that sang.
There was music in his reticence
for my mother. And he needed her,
she knew. Without her
was was The Great Lover?
Numb buzz and nuzzling
drone. A face sliding
down an astral shaft—
to mask the screen in dumb expanse.
(c) Alice Fulton. All rights reserved.
|
